Have LEGO Products Become More Violent?

Type of content
Journal Article
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
English
Date
2016
Authors
Ser QM
Bartneck, Christoph
Moltchanova, Elena
Harrington, Erin
Smithies, James
Abstract

© 2016 Bartneck et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Although television, computer games and the Internet play an important role in the lives of children they still also play with physical toys, such as dolls, cars and LEGO bricks. The LEGO company has become the world's largest toy manufacturer. Our study investigates if the LEGO company's products have become more violent over time. First, we analyzed the frequency of weapon bricks in LEGO sets. Their use has significantly increased. Second, we empirically investigated the perceived violence in the LEGO product catalogs from the years 1978-2014. Our results show that the violence of the depicted products has increased significantly over time. The LEGO Company's products are not as innocent as they used to be.

Description
Citation
Bartneck C, Ser QM, Moltchanova E, Smithies J, Harrington E (2016). Have LEGO Products Become More Violent?. PLoS ONE. 11(5).
Keywords
REAL-LIFE AGGRESSION, VIDEO GAMES, MEDIA VIOLENCE, PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR, TELEVISION, EXPOSURE, WINBUGS, PLAY
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
Fields of Research::52 - Psychology::5201 - Applied and developmental psychology::520101 - Child and adolescent development
Fields of Research::52 - Psychology::5205 - Social and personality psychology::520505 - Social psychology
Fields of Research::35 - Commerce, management, tourism and services::3506 - Marketing::350602 - Consumer-oriented product or service development
Fields of Research::36 - Creative arts and writing::3605 - Screen and digital media::360502 - Computer gaming and animation
Fields of Research::36 - Creative arts and writing::3606 - Visual arts::360601 - Crafts
Rights
All rights reserved unless otherwise stated